


Within You and Without You

by Crockzilla



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 03:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crockzilla/pseuds/Crockzilla
Summary: **MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME**Peter knows he should talk to her, but he doesn't know what he'll say.





	Within You and Without You

**Author's Note:**

> YA'LL
> 
> FOR REAL
> 
> THIS FIC
> 
> CONTAINS
> 
> REALLY BIG SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME
> 
> bless notlucy for reading this and calling me a monster
> 
> I've never written MCU Spidey before, but I really do love him, and I couldn't shake this idea.

“You should go talk to her.”

It wasn’t a request or even a suggestion. She didn’t even give him one of her looks that he couldn’t refuse, just continued sitting next to him, letting it hang in the air. She had just stated a fact. Like, “you need to keep your therapy appointments,” or “you shouldn’t talk to me that way,” and Peter could choose to live up to what she’d said or not.

But he didn’t need May to tell him this, he thought, the little burn of resentment feeling so good in his chest. He’d been thinking about it the whole time they’d been at the cabin, the whole time they were all standing at the lake shore like a bunch of useless idiots, the whole time the others had watched the video while he’d let his eyes go glassy and focused on the constant background shrieking in his brain so he wouldn’t hear the hologram’s familiar voice. 

The entire silent car ride up. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to May – he was so painfully, fucking jubilantly relieved when it turned out that she’d been zapped too and she hadn’t spent five years alone, because that was too horrible to let himself imagine, but that led him to think about what if she’d been zapped and he hadn’t…

And what was he supposed to say to this kid, anyway?

_ You know, when I was about your age,  _ both  _ of my parents died. And then later my uncle died. Except that was my fault, so. And now your dad’s dead, because I wasn’t strong enough to pull a glove off of a big purple asshole. And one day, one way or another, my aunt will die, and your mom, too. _

May was looking at him now. He swore it was like she could hear his brain sometimes, or just enough of it. But it wasn’t like a pressuring type of look, not something he could push back at.

He stood up, feeling the heaviness of the suit on his shoulders and arms. It was the same suit as the last time he’d been at a funeral. It had still fit when he tried it on, even though he felt so much stronger now, and that had pissed him off. Anger felt so good, and that scared him, but it helped him walk through the cabin.

He was afraid to run into anyone, but everyone was off in little pairs or groups of three, or by themselves, and no one had tried to make him talk so far. Cap had laid a hand on his shoulder, briefly, and it occurred to him that these people had a lot more practice with this kind of thing than the people he’d been forced to be around at other funerals.

Morgan was with Happy. Peter loved her name. Maybe he could tell her that? Everything he thought of saying to her sounded empty, hollow, dead.

Happy got up from the couch, patting the spot that he’d left and looking at Peter almost fondly, which was weird and just reminded him of how horribly different everything was now. He let himself sit next to the little girl, even though he felt suddenly scared and wanted very much to just run out into the woods and be by himself.

She didn’t say anything. She looked at him. Peter’s chest tightened and his throat closed. What the fuck had he been thinking? What exactly was this supposed to do? For either of them?

“Spider-man,” she said. 

Peter blinked. His whole brain blinked so hard that the background shrieking even stopped for a second. He was pretty sure he was sitting there with his mouth open, but maybe that’s what this little kid had been after, because she giggled. She took his hand and pulled him off of the couch and led him upstairs to her room.

_ Morgan’s room,  _ he thought.  _ Morgan, Tony’s little girl. _

Morgan opened her closet door and pulled out a bin that looked too heavy for her. Peter knelt down to help her open it, but his hands froze when he’d pulled off the easy-snap lid and revealed the contents: Spider-man figures and a Spider-man lunchbox and a Spider-man blanket and what seemed like an endless well of toys and pictures, red and blue.

She giggled at him again. Peter met her eyes and realized it was the first time he had, and suddenly he remembered – maybe from deep down in his own memories – that she wasn’t sad today the way that the rest of them were. This was a strange day surrounded by people she didn’t know very well. Later, tonight and tomorrow and weeks from now, she would miss her dad.

Peter was so engrossed in their battle between Plushie!Spidey and Punching-Action!Ironman that Pepper must have been standing in the door watching them for a while before he saw her.

“Tony wouldn’t look at pictures of you for a long time,” Pepper said as she sat down next to him, “but he told Morgan all about Spider-man.”

Morgan responded as if on cue by making Plushie!Spidey thwip-thwip his web-slingers, which Peter noticed were too accurate to belong to a toy and realized Tony must have made mini versions of the real ones for her.

“And when Daddy was distracted,” Pepper laughed, dodging her daughter’s pretend-attack, “I’d show her pictures of you. Real you.”

It had not occurred to Peter that Tony would have pictures of him. He took a breath and filed that idea away with the other ideas and images that he’d go over later, when he was by himself and his grief wouldn’t intrude on anyone else’s. He felt Pepper’s hand gently squeeze his arm and refocused on Morgan, presenting Ironman to get hit with more pretend web-slinging. She seemed to believe this was Spidey’s best trick, and Peter had to admit, she wasn’t wrong.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this brings comfort in these trying times!
> 
> Also I am SO sorry I haven't been around for forever but the very busy semester is almost over and I shall answer all of my comments and answer all of my tumblr asks and start filling requests again!


End file.
